RARA-AVIS: Baseball Mysteries/Murderers Row/Jon A. Jackson

From: T.Kent Morgan ( tkmorgan@shaw.ca)
Date: 13 Jan 2002


Jim Blue wrote:
>Since you collect Baseball fiction, have you found the Bill Brashler,
>Duffy House, baseball mysteries written under the name Crabbe Evers? As
far
>as I know they include:

        Bleeding Dodger Blue
        Murder in Wrigley Field
        Fear in Fenway
        Tigers Burning

>Brashler also wrote the fine non-mystery baseball novel "The Bingo Long
>Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings," under his own name.

Actually the series written under the pseudonym of Crabbe Evers was written by William Brashler and Reinder Van Til. Duffy House is the main character who works as an investigator for the commissioner of baseball. There is a fifth book in the series titled Murderers' Row.

I am certainly well aware of Brashler's The Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars
& Motor Kings. In honour of this fictitious barnstorming team, I named the slopitch team I formed 25 seasons ago, The Touring All-Stars, and our first t-shirts carried the artwork from the PB version of his novel. My teammates quickly changed the name to the TKM Touring All-Stars and it remained that way until Labatt's Breweries started sponsoring the team in the early 1980s. We now have two teams with the masters team called the TKM Touring All-Star Old-Stars. A highlight of my book collecting mania came about 10 years ago when I found a rare first edition of Brashler's book for $6.00 on the bottom shelf of the used fiction section in Halsam's wonderful store in St. Petersburg, FL.

Speaking of Murderers' Row, Otto Penzler has edited a book of baseball mystery short stories with that same title. While I have only read a couple, the authors include Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Michael Connelly, K.C. Constantine, Elmore Leonard and Robert Parker so there should be some stories that will appeal to members of this list.

I have just finished Jon A. Jackson's Man with an Axe (1998), which likely will end up on my top ten list for 2002 even though it's the first book of fiction I have read this year. I can't understand why Jackson doesn't receive more acclaim for his Fang Mulheisen series.

Kent Morgan in Winnipeg

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